Silk and Squalorhttps://silkandsqualor.wordpress.com
An existential crisis, with styleFri, 16 Feb 2018 17:40:21 +0000enhourly1http://wordpress.com/https://s2.wp.com/i/buttonw-com.pngSilk and Squalorhttps://silkandsqualor.wordpress.com
Marketing androgynous clothing: language choicehttps://silkandsqualor.wordpress.com/2012/12/09/language/
https://silkandsqualor.wordpress.com/2012/12/09/language/#commentsSun, 09 Dec 2012 16:15:23 +0000http://silkandsqualor.wordpress.com/?p=555Continue reading →]]>When I started developing the line I hope to launch to launch next fall, it had a target audience of exactly one–me–so, by default, it was a womenswear line. (Edited to add on 7/16/13: It’s happening! It’s called Scout’s Honor Clothing Company, and I couldn’t be more excited about it.)

Over the last few months I’ve been following various companies who are doing more or less what I want to do: making clothing in shapes, colors, and styles that we traditionally associate with menswear, and cutting them to fit people with hips and/or boobs and/or small frames. These companies include Androgyny, Androgynous, Kreuzbach10, Marimacho, Original Tomboy, and recently, Saint Harridan. (Saint Harridan launched their pre-order Kickstarter campaign about two weeks ago and have already well exceeded their $87,000 goal. Wow!)

A few days before their Kickstarter began, I was reading the “Words” page of the Saint Harridan site and had a pretty strong reaction to one of the comments there–or, rather, to the /tone/ of the comment. I actually agree with the commenter’s main point. But, without getting further into it, because each time I try I wind up writing a half-dozen paragraphs that will probably make you go ZZzzzzZZZZzzz, I’ll say this: I think it’s a bummer that (it seems to me) the harder someone tries to be open and inclusive, the more they set themselves up to be attacked.

Reading these “Words,” and the comments they provoked, got me thinking even more about the language I will use to describe the garments in my line. And it got me curious about how the other companies I’ve identified talk about their customers, so here, in rough order of company launch, are some more words:

Marimacho: on their About page, they describe their products as “fashion for the unconventionally masculine,” then go on to describe how they’ve modified the cut of traditional menswear to the fit the “diverse bodies” of their customers.

Original Tomboy: on their About page, they write that this is a “collection designed for women who re-define what it means to dress ‘like a girl’, creating a forward yet timeless option for fit and style.” They don’t say anything about whether/how they’ve modified the fit of typical garments.

Androgyny: their Kickstarter describes the frustration “queer women” and “women outside the queer community” feel when unable to find clothing that fits their identity and makes them feel comfortable, and they state that their products “offer a men’s aesthetic re-engineered for the female form.”

Androgynous: on their Kickstarter, they suggest that their target audience is “women who don’t fit into the societal “feminine” category [and] have never been able to find clothing made just for them.” Their products are “Simply elegant, classy, clean-cut menswear made to fit women.”

Kruezbach 10: according to their indiegogo page, “Kreuzbach 10 makes men’s shirts, cut to fit women’s bodies.” They go on to comment that they “don’t like to say we make women’s shirts….Our shirts are designed to be straight up what you’d expect to find in the men’s department….However unlike shirts in the men’s department Kreuzbach10 shirts are cut to fit female bodies.”

Finally, Saint Harridan, who sent me down this rabbithole, from the opening of their Words page: “We who are attracted to the clothes at Saint Harridan use many different words to describe ourselves. We use words like stud, butch or boi among many others. Some of us embrace the word woman, others like man, some prefer neither or both.” On the Kickstarter, the only mention of their potential customers’ gender is in the video, when they say they want to make suits for “her…or her…or him…or her…or you.” In talking about fit, they mention that they “size for Saints with breasts and no breasts.”

Even though I’ve spent a gazillion hours on all their sites, and have read their copy a gazillion times, I was surprised to discover that 4 of the 6 companies market themselves specifically and exclusively to women. I like what Marimacho is doing, just sort of sidestepping the issue and letting the customers decide whether these clothes are for them. I’d like to try to emulate this in my own copy; however, I’m very attached to my branding slogan, which uses the word ‘tomboy,’ which, as this reader of tomboy/femme points out, is not an inclusive term. Blurg. Thoughts, world?

A couple weeks ago, DapperQ posted about another new designer doing menswear-style shirts cut for women. They’re called Kreuzbach 10, and they’re in the midst of an Indiegogo campaign that ends Nov 14th. Interestingly, the DapperQ promotion didn’t seem to have much of an effect–their funding had been hovering around stalled around $900 ever since I read the DapperQ post. But in the last couple days, they’ve raised another $2500 (ETA the next morning: more like $3500!). From doing a little googling, it looks like it had a lot to do with massive tumblr reposts over that same period (beginning early Nov 5?). I am endlessly fascinated by the potential snowball effect of sites like tumblr, especially considering that the designer behind Kruezbach 10 probably put a lot of effort into targeting press releases to places like DapperQ, only to get vastly higher returns on a tumblr post she may not have even directly solicited. I don’t know. I mean, I’d be grateful, of course, but I think I’d also be frustrated by how little control I had over the situation. Is it possible to affect the chaotic but potentially viral nature of social media, to put the pieces in place so that a piece of information is likely to gain wide exposure, without being evil? I’m not saying I think Kruezbach 10 did anything evil–quite the opposite. But is their success over the last couple days, after three weeks of very little activity, luck or strategy? And if it was luck, is there something to be learned from that luck?

As of this writing on Tuesday evening, what I’m pretty sure is the original tumblr post has about 3700 “notes”–a combination of “likes” and reblogs. So, 3700 people have engaged, however briefly, with this post over the last day and a half, two days. Over that same time span, Kruezbach 10’s campaign has had just over 50 new funders. Obviously, some may have been referred from places other than tumblr, but I know tumblr had a lot to do with it. Let’s pretend all 50 came from tumblr. That’s about 1.4% of the people who “liked” or reblogged the post. I have no idea what to make of this number, whether it’s a good number or an extraordinary number or a ‘meh’ number, or how to match it or even exceed it (though I do believe step 1 is “create awesome clothes”) but it’s exciting and something to chew on these next few months while I hatch my plans.

The big news is, I wrote a guest blog post for Qwear, a fashion I blog I discovered while doing research for my business class. The post is about skirts in (mostly high-fashion) menswear and what women who want to wear skirts without looking too feminine can take away from those menswear looks.

I finished my apron and am almost done with my skirt for sewing class. They both turned out well (if I do say so myself). I might even wear the skirt. Taking tips from my guest post, of course!

Tiny (“toddler-sized”) apron!

Me-sized skirt!

You can’t quite tell from the photo, but the skirt fabric is striped and cut on the bias so it forms a V at center front and center back. One of the challenges of this assignment is to learn to match stripes, and I didn’t realize what I was getting myself into when I picked teeny-tiny ones.

Cute, right?

I began my first Burda Style pattern. It’s a boy’s button-down shirt–I figured the biggest boy’s size is more likely to fit me well than the smallest men’s size. My aim is to make something along the lines of a scout/ranger shirt. It’s funny, I realized as I was starting the project, thinking about how I wanted to modify the sleeves and pockets, that I pretty much had my old National Park Service uniform shirt in mind (I worked as a fee collector at Shenandoah NP for a summer right after college). I dug out the bagful of uniforms I’ve been schlepping around for almost a decade (Because hey, maybe I’ll go back one day!) and discovered that, yep, it’s been an unconscious inspiration for a lot of what I’ve been designing lately.

And finally, I tried to make an old-t-shirt skirt for S but it didn’t turn out like I’d hoped. It looks promising on it own, but when she put it on it didn’t have any flare (or flair. probably because of the lack of flare.) I have some ideas about why this is and what I can do to fix it, but for now, it goes back in the “in progress” pile.

skirt in progress

Oh also, I’m really excited about neckerchiefs all of a sudden, and I cannot find nearly enough pictures of girls wearing them. So, I will be spearheading the trend. Fall 2013, neckerchiefs will be must-have. You heard it here first.

]]>https://silkandsqualor.wordpress.com/2012/10/25/lots-of-little-things/feed/0claremariemapronSkirtpark ranger shirtskirt in progressKeep at ithttps://silkandsqualor.wordpress.com/2012/10/11/keep-at-it/
https://silkandsqualor.wordpress.com/2012/10/11/keep-at-it/#commentsThu, 11 Oct 2012 16:10:00 +0000http://silkandsqualor.wordpress.com/?p=488Continue reading →]]>This weekend, my girlfriend and I visited her hometown of Fresno, mainly so we could go to the Big Fresno Fair. I wasn’t really sure what to expect–the main selling points for me had been racing pigs and rollercoasters. I did not expect the enormous building of exhibits of things–gems, jalapeno peppers, afghans, rabbits–courtesy of the people of Fresno.

I have this vague recollection of doing 4-H in second grade. Our whole class did it; I have no idea why. Why that year and no other year? Why were public schoolchildren in Chicago participating in 4-H to begin with? We had to grow plants, and for those plants we were given ribbons and a corresponding amount of money. I think I walked away with about ten or fifteen bucks, which was a lot of money for a second grader, especially in the late eighties, especially in public school. Where did this money come from? The good people of 4-H? I know our school couldn’t afford it.

So, that is one of the great mysteries of my youth, and I’ve sometimes wondered if I just made the damn thing up. But the Juniors Exhibit at the Big Fresno Fair would seem to suggest that I’ve got at least some of my facts straight. We saw everything from plants to photographs to pies to fully assembled barbeques, all of them (in the juniors section, anyway) awarded either first, second, or third prize. For each of the kids sections–fine arts, agriculture, etc–there was an entire BUILDING of adult entries, though the judges were less liberal with the ribbons there. I hadn’t really thought about the money thing, and anyway I would have assumed it was only for the kids, but nope, when we were in the agriculture building one of the ribbons was flipped over and I saw that the entrant had been awarded $7.50 for their peppers. Of course, then I had to sneakily turn over other ribbons. Some of the first prize vegetables commanded as much as $15, some as little as $3. I don’t know how many plants we had to grow in second grade, but I remember them being pretty wimpy, so I don’t know how on earth they managed to earn me what they did. Different standards in Chicago, 1988 vs. Fresno, 2012? Higher expectations there?

Of course I was most excited about the home arts section, because that’s where the sewing was. There were also pies, quilts, lampshades (there’s a lampshade society!), scrapbooks, and other frozen-in-time endeavors. When we finally got to the garment section I was momentarily overcome by this pure glee that was not really proportional what was in front of me. I mean, it was nice, there was this beautifully embroidered vest, but I think it was more the excitement of finally getting to the section I’d been looking for. But my squealing did not escape the notice of either S or a very nice lady in some sort of official capacity. She came over to me and asked if I’d won a ribbon.
“Oh, no, it’s just that I’m learning to sew and so I was excited to see this work.”
She was probably still a little confused, as well she should have been, but she was very sweet. She asked me how old I was, and I told her (S and I both suspect that she was surprised to learn I’m in my early thirties. In cutoffs and a t-shirt with rabbits kissing on it, I probably could have told her I was 18 and she would have believed me), and she said “Well, most of the people who win first prize are in their sixties, and they’ve probably been sewing for fifty years, so you just keep at it, dear, and one day you’ll get first prize, too.” The cynic in me probably wanted something terrible like “Well, I’m planing to aim a little higher than the county fair circuit,” but I am good person so I said “Thank you.” And anyway, f*** that cynic. F*** the idea that winning a blue ribbon at the county fair is a lower greatness than whatever it is I’m aiming for. Though S and I were amused to learn that you have to come to the fair to find out if you’ve won a ribbon. Which we assume means you have to pay the $10 to get in. Which does seem like a bit of a racket, no?

In school-related news, in sewing class, we’ve moved on to making objects that aren’t squares. This week, an apron! (pictures forthcoming) Next week, a skirt! Though I’m most excited about the camp shirt that runs most of November.

In other other news, I’ve been thinking a lot about how weird it is that the more I learn about starting a business, the more do-able it seems and the more excited I get about it. I would have guessed it would be the opposite, that the more I learned about all the complicated details, the more scared I would get and eventually I would just say ‘This isn’t for me.’ Instead it has gone from this fuzzy, nebulous ‘Hey, it might be interesting to start a business,’ to ‘This is a thing that I’m doing. For real.’ I’ve never considered myself business-minded. I mean, I’m good with numbers, but I also know that’s not what business really is. I have always been under the impression that a skilled business person has to be ruthless. They need to be exceptional in the arts of persuasion and negotiation, and these are not my strengths. But I’ve started to realize a few things. First, ignoring the ruthlessness question, running a business may be the perfect occupation for me because it will keep me from getting bored and/or resentful of my work. I know that makes me sound a little full of myself, but oh well. Maybe I am. I think that’s the reason I keep winding up back in school–because (and I know not everyone sees it this way) that is where I have the most freedom to explore. Sure, we have assignments to complete, but, at least in the classes I take, it’s not as though each student is turning in an identical assignment. (Actually, come to think of it, this may be why both Sewing I and Digital Illustration have been frustrating to me at times this semester–because often the whole point is to duplicate something that already exists.) Anyhow, I have always loved to make things. I have always loved to do lots of different things instead of one thing over and over. Running a business would allow me to do both of those. I had a second reason. It had to do with the ruthlessness question. Maybe next time.

In the works: carpenter jeans. More tees. Plaid button-downs. And maybe a dress!

]]>https://silkandsqualor.wordpress.com/2012/09/28/drawings/feed/0claremariempeg-legyellow-shirt-skirtOne month inhttps://silkandsqualor.wordpress.com/2012/09/13/one-month-in/
https://silkandsqualor.wordpress.com/2012/09/13/one-month-in/#commentsThu, 13 Sep 2012 16:04:24 +0000http://silkandsqualor.wordpress.com/?p=427Continue reading →]]>That title was supposed to refer to being one month in to this semester, but I’m also about a month in to this blog, and already I’m not keeping up. For the last week I’ve been fiddling with a post about being bummed that my dress got a one-star review. It was a single one-star review amidst four- and even more five-stars, and my post was ultimately about being mindful and allowing myself to feel irrationally sad, angry and annoyed about the review so that I can then let it go. But even though the point of that post was not ultimately to complain, I decided it was still too negative.

So, hello, blank page. Here is what I have been doing in school so far this year.

In Apparel Construction I, we’ve been sewing lines on squares and joining squares together with various seams. It is tedious but good for me.

Squares!

In Creating a Garment Business, we gave elevator pitches last week, and my teacher said I “knocked it out of the ballpark.” Woohoo. He also said I should talk from my diaphragm and not from my throat. This will be hard. While I don’t talk this way intentionally, I know it’s part of a role I’ve been cultivating for years, decades even: small and non-threatening, yet surprisingly observant and opinionated. The idea is to lure you in with my apparent insecurity, then knock you out with my insights. But I guess this teacher doesn’t buy it. Alas. Diaphragm!

In Digital Illustration for Fashion, we are learning to make flats. I drew this silly shirt.

yay learning

My friend S is in two of my classes, and just this week my friend R joined one of the classes. I’m excited but nervous about this, worried it will impact my ability to be a serious student, especially since these are lab classes. If I were on my own, I would probably do things a million times until they were perfect, as opposed to doing them until they’re good enough and then leaving to get a sandwich. So I either need to learn to say no to socializing–so hard!–or be content with good enough.

]]>https://silkandsqualor.wordpress.com/2012/09/13/one-month-in/feed/2claremariemfabric squaresshirt-from-classFound! Tomboy / androgynous / genderqueer clothing upstartshttps://silkandsqualor.wordpress.com/2012/08/30/found-tomboy-androgynous-genderqueer-clothing-upstarts/
https://silkandsqualor.wordpress.com/2012/08/30/found-tomboy-androgynous-genderqueer-clothing-upstarts/#commentsThu, 30 Aug 2012 16:00:35 +0000http://silkandsqualor.wordpress.com/?p=347Continue reading →]]>Update, 7/17/13: Now I can add my own to the list! I’m starting a line of clothing for tomboys called Scout’s Honor Clothing Co. I hope you love it as much as I do.

Lesson of the week: Google is not always the end-all, be-all of finding stuff on the internet. Sometimes you just gotta link surf. After my last post, a very helpful friend-of-a-friend pointed me in some good directions, and just by coincidence, later that day, someone on tomboy/femme style posted a link to Androgynous Fashion’s Kickstarter (see below). From there, everything opened up. Original Tomboy is still closest to my aesthetic, with Marimacho a close second, but here are some other companies that are part of this little zeitgeist:

There’s Haute Butch and Tomboy Fresh, both of which are fully launched. Both have what I think of (perhaps inaccurately) as more of a SoCal aesthetic. At the moment, Tomboy Fresh only sells tees, but their pulldown menu suggests that accessories and outerwear are either in the works or were available in the past. Haute Butch’s line is similarly limited to printed tees, hoodies and tanks, as well as hats and–this part is interesting–shoes! They appear to be growing their line, though: they’re coming out with a fall collection that I assume was designed in-house.

Then there’s Dapper Girl, which doesn’t really count since it doesn’t match my intended business model. From what I can tell, they’re purely middlepeople, importing a selection of products primarily from China and presenting it under the androgynous/butch umbrella. The site kind of makes my heart hurt; I’ve thought about some of the reasons for this, but I won’t get into them right now.

And then there are the two newly-minted companies so synchronous I need a mnemonic to remember which is which: Androgyny and Androgynous. Although their products don’t match my aesthetic exactly–and ultimately this is a good thing–they are targeting a similar demographic and doing so in a way that, so far anyway, appears to be working. Here’s a comparison:

Androgyny
Tagline: “Inspiring personal confidence one shirt at a time”
Conceived and produced in San Francisco (hooray).Kickstarter: raised $16,575 in 45 days on a $10,000 goal. 174 backers. $95 average pledge. Kickstarter ended July 23, 2012.

They describe their product as “A men’s aesthetic re-engineered to accommodate the female form” and a “flawless blend of feminine and masculine touches.” (from the kickstarter page) Nothing is for sale on their website yet, but it looks like the only products they’ll be offering for now are button-down shirts, although there was some mention of suits on their facebook page, and vests and jackets show up in some of their facebook photos. Price points on shirts range from $125 to $200. The low end is the same as Taylor Stitch, and from what I understand, Taylor Stitch is doing really well.

Androgynous
Tagline: “Staying true to yourself”
Conceived and produced in LAKickstarter:raised $22,148 in 30 days on a $10,000 goal. 268 backers. $83 average pledge. Kickstarter ended August 28, 2012.

They describe their product as “Simply elegant, classy, clean-cut menswear made to fit women.” (from the kickstarter page) Nothing is for sale on their website yet. Their product line is extensive and includes pants, button-downs, vests and jackets. The button-downs come in a variety of designs (though they’re probably all the same basic pattern). Price points on button-downs are considerably lower than Androgyny’s–$55-$85–and if I’m reading the copy correctly, the owners intend to produce the garments themselves. Plus they’re offering custom sizing on their kickstarter rewards. From everything I’ve learned about the garment making industry in the past, um, 7 months (read: this is a non-professional opinion), that seems REALLY ambitious.

I get it now. (via Androgynous facebook album)

Their product line is more creative than Androgyny’s, a little more modern. Seeing the shirts photographed flat on the kickstarter page, I didn’t really “get” them, but after flipping through their photo album on facebook, they make a lot more sense, and are hella sexy. HOWEVER, looking through that album, something was rubbing me the wrong way, and I finally figured it out. The kickstarter is all about how frustrating traditional womenswear can be for androgynous-leaning shoppers, because it’s so often cut to create and/or accentuate shape. So the designers created garments that “are not formfitting, don’t taper at the waist and hips, and there [are] no darts where the chest is.” (from the kickstarter page) I realized what was bugging me about the photos was that all the models are shaped like boys: tall and skinny with little to no bust or hips. What happens when you put these dart-free, taper-free shirts on women with boobs? Obviously, people can make clothes for whomever they want; obviously, tall and skinny is the standard for models in the industry in general. I just think it would have been nice for them to show us what a woman with curves who has that same desire to wear menswear-style clothing looks like in this line. Does it work on her, or does it only work on people who could probably get away with wearing menswear anyway? And if not, what’s the point?

Another question: what factors led to Androgynous having a more successful Kickstarter campaign? Obviously, both were successful, but Androgynous raised about $6500 more in two-thirds the time. Lower price points? A more extensive line? More traditionally sexy models? Better marketing? (The link from tomboy/femme style certainly didn’t hurt, but they were already well past their goal when it was posted.)

I’m taking a class called Creating a Garment Business, which I’m really excited about, because, um, I’d like to create a garment business. For our first assignment, we had to do an overview of a product line we’d like to create, and I decided to focus on tomboy style–it’s a look I like, a look a lot of my friends wear, and I’d love to put my own spin on.

The biggest challenge of this assignment was figuring out who my competition is. Alicia Hardesty, a current Project Runway contestant, is coming out with a line called Original Tomboy, but besides her, I had a really hard time finding indie designers or lines that focus exclusively on this look. Which surprised me, because the look is everywhere, and there’s no shortage of imagery available. I’m specifically thinking of two blogs: Tomboy Style and tomboy/femme style. Tomboy Style seems to be more focused on products, and may wind up being a good research resource, while tomboy/femme style is just this lovely inundation of images. So much inspiration. So much plaid. (I plaid, so this is a good thing.)

After a few hours of research (with many, many more to go), I determined that I have two major competitor-types. The first is nationwide chains with a preppy aesthetic like J Crew, Banana Republic and American Eagle Outfitters; the other is thrift stores. Especially thrift stores. My target customer (who is basically me) shops at thrift stores for two reasons: first, because she doesn’t have a ton of disposable income, and second, because she wants to be unique.

If these women are managing to put together this look on their own, often on the cheap, is there a market for my line? YES! My customers don’t have a go-to store or line where they know they’ll find stuff that fits their style. To paraphrase my friend Z responding to my comment that you can find this look at J Crew: “Yeah, but you have to dig for it. It’s really hard. Sometimes it can be rewarding, but most of the time it’s a pain in the ass.” I won’t be setting out to please everyone, or, for that matter, to be the only place my customer shops. What I want to do it create a small collection of pieces I know my customer will love, and a brand they know they can come back to. That won’t be so hard, will it?

Oh! Z and another friend also pointed me toward Marimacho, and I’m excited to keep an eye on them. I love the Brooklyn Blazer. However, the fact that they didn’t come up on any of my searches really drives home the importance of good SEO.

Any tips on where to find tomboywear? Any favorite independent designers? I don’t like thinking of them as “future competitors,” so how about “kindred spirits”/”people I can learn from”?

Well, this third pair of jeans did not turn out quite how I’d intended. They’re a little odd, but they’re growing on me.

The plan was to take the current colored-denim trend and make it a little more punk by adding large patches of a detail fabric. I’ve had some (probably faux) Burberry (probably faux) raw silk lying around for literally a decade, which I planned to lay over a sizeable portion of the legs. I used the top half of my jeans pattern from the last pair but adjusted the legs so they’d be longer and more fitted.

Flayed pant leg, ready for patch placement

Things were going along pretty well. I was starting to feel like I was finally getting the hang of the fly front. (I am endlessly indebted to this fly front tutorial by my delightful draping teacher–it’ll be at least a couple more runs before I can do a fly without it.) Then I tried the things on. I don’t know what happened, since the last pair I made fit fine. But this time around there was some major cameltoe going on. This, coupled with the pinky-peach color of the pant–let’s just say it was a little obscene.

When I unzipped the fly, I realized they were simply too small. Again, I’m not sure how this happened since I’m using the same draft, but I guess a small cutting error combined with a small overlocking error combined with small seam allowance error could add up pretty quick. (Not to say I think I made those errors. But maybe I did.) Or maybe it had to do with this being stretch denim, which I was warned is notoriously tough to work with? So, what to do? I decided it might look cute if I cut slits about midway between center front and the edge of the pockets, and insert triangular pieces of contrasting denim to create a wider waistband. Sort of the opposite of darts. Is there a term for this?

Anatomy of screwing up

Lesson learned #1: Even if you’re so totally sure you’re gonna get everything sewn and sealed in a jiffy, ALWAYS OVERLOCK YOUR DENIM. As soon as you start to fuss with it, it will unravel faster than a Hollywood marriage.

I tried to sew in my triangles without overlocking anything. In the process, the jeans themselves, like, crumbled beneath my hands. Then when I did try to overlock the exposed edges I wound up tearing everything up even worse. It was awkward, and a big mess, and I was losing more and more of my pants with every fumble. So, even though I was pretty proud of the fly front, I decided to cut it out and do a bib front with the contrasting denim instead.

I immediately overlocked my newly exposed edges, and set about designing the bib front. I was working with a seven-inch by nine-inch rectangle, and this is what I came up with:

Bib front, unattached.

I struggled to attach the bib to the pant without bubbling and creasing at the corners, and eventually decided that these jeans were getting so crazy I could just make them crazier, so I sliced open one of the corners and patched it with the Burberry fabric.

Before this “fix” the jeans looked awesome on their own (aside from the cameltoe and subsequent lack of front), and the bib front looked super cute, but they didn’t look quite right together. So, one more design element (Coco Chanel would so have my head): folding over the top of the dark denim to reveal the red lining looked cute and broke up the textureless void of the dark denim, so I sewed a red button on the front panel and buttoned it down. Done!

Like all strange children, we love them if they’re ours.

Oh! Lesson learned, #2: the trouble I was having with the buttonholes turned out to be less about the denim as about the fact that I was still using heavy duty thread. Thin thread for buttonholes, no matter the fabric they’re on!

Do you have any stories of projects not turning out quite how you’d planned?

(Okay, as of this writing, it’s not available quite yet. August 15th! Steel yourself!)

So, one of the most exciting things that happened to me this year (right up there with being invited to, and attending, an amazing writers’ retreat in Mexico, which I hope to post about soon) was my unexpected victory in ModCloth.com’s second Make the Cut contest.

I entered the contest the first time around and didn’t make the finals. Which was fine–I had only recently decided to get serious about the fashion thing, and I hadn’t drawn in years. The mere fact that it got me drawing was achievement enough. I participated in the voting, lending my facebook bits and bytes to some of my favorite underdogs, as well as other favorites that appeared to have a shot at the top 5. When ModCloth announced the winners, there was also a surprise: ModCloth’s co-founder (and director of the contest), Susan Gregg Koger, had chosen two additional looks to be produced! And one, Tyger Alexis’s “It Takes Turmeric,” was a favorite of mine!

The contest rolled around again in March, this time with the theme of Retro Honor Roll, which was right up my alley. I love the nerdy look. Mostly because I am a nerd. By then, I was about halfway through Fashion Illustration I, and I was definitely making progress. I spent a good chunk of spring break working on my entries, studying not just the moodboard, but also the entries that had done well in the previous contest, and the shapes and colors of popular dresses on ModCloth. I even took out a library book called Everyday Fashion of the Sixties. A few days after sending in my entries, I got the news that I was finalist, which was especially exciting and surprising considering they’d reduced the number of finalists from 100 to 25.

The sketch I submitted.

Then began the scary task of asking everyone I know to vote for me on facebook, followed by a simultaneously disappointing and thrilling week of watching the votes appear (or not). It became clear early on that there was no way I would rally the numbers some of the other entrants were getting. Let’s be honest, at its heart, fb voting is–I’m not going to say a popularity contest, though that’s the term a lot of people use–more like a test of how connected you are, how thoroughly you can cheerlead for yourself and get others to do the same. But while I may not have had those big numbers, a lot people did come out of the woodwork to support me–old classmates, friends of my mom–and that made my heart soar. I finished proudly in middle-place (12th or 13th out of 25), a mere, I dunno, 400 votes short of the community winners. (We’re talking orders of magnitude, here: I got about 100 votes, the folks in the top row garnered around 500.)

This time around, only the top three entries would be winners, instead of the top five, but we knew in advance that Susan would choose two more winners herself, announcing those choices at the end of the week. So, there was still hope…but, really, with so many beautiful sketches, including at least one that I was seriously crossing my fingers would be picked because it was super cute and I wanted one, I knew it was time to call it done, honored (truly) to simply have been nominated. Still, every time I got an email those next few days I secretly hoped it was ModCloth, writing to tell me my dress was a winner.

That didn’t happen. That Thursday evening, I taught a really crummy class. I was just way off my game, and I made at least one student very angry (with good reason, though I stand behind what I said and did), and I barely slept that night. Eventually, not long before I would have to be getting up anyway, I gave up on trying to sleep and pulled my laptop into bed. I read through the blog posts that had collected over the night, and when I refreshed my Google Reader, there it was. Make the Cut: Retro Honor Roll Winners! The email I was secretly hoping for had never arrived. Oh well, maybe they’d at least chosen that dress I wanted to buy.

I scrolled down through the copy and saw my name. Had I really lost so much sleep that I was hallucinating? I scrolled further. There were the top three everyone already knew would win…and then there was my sketch. With my name next to it. Spelled correctly. In a specialty font that someone had clearly taken time to format. Enough time and energy had gone into the announcement that if my presence there were a mistake, someone would have caught it.

(We are artists, this is what we do: assume our successes are in fact administrative errors. My beautiful retreat-mate, Antonia Crane, discusses the phenomenon in her post about the trip. I went through exactly the same thing with that, too.)

A few days ago, I decided to reread a favorite book from my childhood, From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler. I just got to the part where Claudia learns a secret, a secret she will carry with her for many years. Having this secret will allow her to go back home ‘different,’ which was her goal all along.

Though of course the dress will soon be a very real thing, winning this contest has mostly been about the intangibles for me. I feel extremely grateful that it happened when it did, that I was able to see my own design go from sketch to sourcing to production to, soon, availability. It’ll be a long time before I’m able to oversee that entire process on my own, but in the meantime, this is something I can carry around like Claudia did her secret, to propel myself forward and remind myself that, as much as this might feel like a fluke–and surely there was some luck involved, or at least a good degree of subjectivity and being in the right place at the right time–it is actually the result of hard work, research, revision, and tenacity, a reminder to always fail better so we can succeed along the way.